Ánthrōpos métron
by Tactful Grimalkin
Summary: I'm not a demigod, or monster, or god, and I'm pretty sure I'm not even Greek. I'm just Percy Jackson, a kid trying his best to survive the end of the world. That plan never included snake women, oracles, gods, or daughters of gods, but I don't think it's going to work anymore, anyways.
1. Prologue

Naturally, the apocalypse started on my 16th birthday.

No one knew why it happened. I don't think anyone really stopped to think about it. It was like the system the world ran on just malfunctioned on a global scale. How a nuclear holocaust hadn't happened yet is just short of a miracle. I'm sure some now-dead hero deserves some thanks for that.

First came the storm systems. Ran all the way across the continental united states from Washington state to New York. It was like a hundred tornadoes tangled together, but somehow worse. I remember seeing something on the news about it leaving a crater almost a quarter-mile in diameter somewhere in rural Idaho, and I was not believing that news reporter who stammered something about it picking up a particularly large rock and then jettisoning it back at the ground.

When it finally got to New York, it was weird. I barely lasted more than five minutes before blowing out to sea almost too quickly for it to be real, leaving damage, broken windows, and the streets mildly flooded with sewer water. It felt like dodging a bullet, that is, if a bullet suddenly curving around you instead of continuing it's expect path fell under the broad definition of 'dodging'.

New York breathed a sigh of relief, and so did I. Looking back, I realized the only person who didn't seem relieved was, oddly, my mom, who looked, if anything, nervous. I wonder sometimes if she somehow knew.

Not three days later, the riots started.

It was weird. Sure, people were angry, there was shit in the street for god's sake, people kinda had a right to be annoyed, but things were escalating way too fast. What started as a bunch of people grumbling over coffee would quickly become a strike, which quickly became a full blown riot. Then all of the riots started joining forces, and the police were called in. The weird thing was, it wasn't even localized. News stations were reporting about riots from all over, even places where the storm system didn't wreck.

We stayed inside a lot during those early days, and I think it saved our ass. The store my mom worked at part time had been flooded by shit, and her college classes had been canceled. The high school I went to, where Paul, my stepfather, also happened to work, had taken damage in the storm, and classes were canceled until further notice. It was alright at first, but things got increasingly uneasy as time went by. It was three days before we got to see what a riot really looked like.

It was late at night, something like 10:30, when a riot passed by below our apartment, and let me tell you, it was a little terrifying looking down on that. People were starting fires and attacking each other, it didn't even really seem to matter who, though rioters and police fought the most. They didn't seem to have a message or a demand, like they were rioting just for the sake of it or something.

Watching it made me angry. I didn't really know why, but I felt like I needed to do something. It wasn't a new feeling for me, I had been ADHD all my life, but something about the energy that was boiling under my skin felt different. I distinctly remember feeling an almost overwhelming compulsion to punch Paul, which was incredibly alien to me, since Paul was the best thing to happen to my mom.

My mom was the one who figured it out. All three of us were peering out of a window when she suddenly blanched. Me and Paul shared a worried glance. She stammered out an explanation that made no sense, until eventually simply ordering us to pay close attention to a man who was approaching the crowd with disarming gestures. He fished someone out the crowd, and they spoke for a moment, others in the riots parting around them to continue moving forward, before the man suddenly stopped making disarming gestures. The person they were talking to started getting physical, and the man clocked them in the face, and the fell like a rock. The man ran up to catch up with the riot.

I remember saying 'What the fuck?', and didn't even get a peep of dissent from my mom about "language", which pretty much told me that my reaction was the only reaction.

Paul was sharp enough to point out that it looked like some police officers had started joining the riots. I said that it didn't look like just 'a few' to me.

We came to the conclusion that, whatever was going on, those riots were not normal. It was like the second you got involved in one, reason would begin to fail you or something. Stay too long, and you go insane. We didn't think we were the only ones who figured this out, since a lot of people stopped going out to see the riots. We tried to wait out the riots, hoping that this could somehow blow over and the mass hysteria could be avoided.

That plan lasted a week, and in spite of her being the one to catch the little detail that probably saved our lives back when that riot passed by, that didn't help her when everything started to really go downhill, and I found myself another one of many orphans.

Logically, I know that the reason she died was because she was trying to protect me, and Paul, in turn, was trying to protect her. But it still confused me a little. I know it should have been me, and by all rights, I deserved it a lot more than she did. I guess my theory of the best people having the worst luck was true after all.

Since then, I think the only thing that managed to keep me going was the fact my mom chose to die for me. I really wanted to quit sometimes. The world was awful, especially with one less person like Sally Jackson in it. But my life was a gift, and I would never throw away the last gift my mom had given me. It was the most precious thing I owned, and I had backpack with a few functioning lighters in it.

So, I decided that I would survive. For as long as I could. No matter the pain, or my personal wants and needs, I would not die, because my mom had saved me.

It's kinda funny how these things work out, because this happens to be the story of how I died.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Okay, so It's a bit on the skimpy side, but I felt like if I didn't post something soon I would probably going to chicken out. This will serve as the prologue to the story, but originally, this was a little introduction that was supposed to be in chapter 1! Chapter 1 proper is already finished(and way, way longer, with dialog. The works, honestly.), but I want to give myself a bit of a buffer zone so I can update with some regularity without needing to rush anything. So I guess this is more of a... teaser? Yeah, let's go with that. It's not terribly interesting at this stage, but I am going to be diving right into Greek shenanigans, so hopefully that will entice you to stay around.<em>

_I hope you enjoyed what little I provided, and have a wonderful day!_


	2. The Cabin Where It All Started

It had been four months since the beginning of the end, and I could really feel winter now.

I had looted some winter gear not long after my mom died, and it had managed to stave off hypothermia for the time being, but I knew it was going to do little against the winter of New York. I needed to start heading south, and soon, if I had any attachment to my toes.

I really shouldn't have stayed to November.

But, even with New York in ruins, and crumbling more and more every day as more and more people died, and the already rare sightings of people grew scarcer and scarcer, I couldn't help but feel attached to the broken city. It was like a old dog that needed to be put down, and I was seriously dragging my feet on _that _walk out to the woods.

I found myself standing in front of two piles of stones in central park. One was a little larger than the other, but both looked kinda dilapidated. The larger one had a stone, all smooth and ovular, and painted blue. I spent a few minutes tidying up the piles.

If 15 year old me could see me now, he'd surely not want to walk on the side of the street I was on. With my scraggly little beard and wispy moustached that I tried in vain to keep in check, disastrous hair from trying to cut it myself with safety scissors a month or so back, and that telltale layer of dirt that screamed homeless. Add in the fact that I was arranging a pile of rocks like a madman wouldn't help either.

The whole process took longer than it should have, but I felt like I needed to do a good job. This was potentially the last time I ever did it, after all. Placing the blue stone atop the larger pile, I stood up, and stared at my humble grave markers.

"Mom." I said to the grave with the blue rock. I kept my voice low, so I wouldn't alert any other lingerers who might be stalking around the city. "I'm going now. "

"Gonna head south, for the winter, at least. I don't know if- When, I'll be back. I'll be safe. Don't worry." I swallowed thickly. This was incredibly _stupid _and sappy, I know, but somehow it comforted me a little. "So, bye."

I turned away from the graves, and started walking, fighting against the compulsion to look back. The sooner I left the city, the better. I'd start dragging my feet all over again if I stuck around. But, before I really started heading south, I needed to make one final stop: Montauk.

Montauk had always been special to my mom. She met my dad there. Together, they shared a whirlwind romance, and some months later, I had been born. Apparently, he left my mom before she was aware that she was pregnant. She would always say he had always planned to return, but for whatever reason, he never did. Even so, she never said one bad word about the guy.

Please let the record show that I am not my Mom.

The walk was slow. I was cold in spite of my jacket. The closer I got to Montauk, the more I doubted that I could handle being there. But I didn't stop. I needed to see that beach one last time.

Long island looked miserable. I didn't pass by a single store that didn't have shattered glass lying all around it. Cars were abandoned on streets, and there was dried blood splatter pretty much everywhere. I did try to scope out the area to see if anything was worth looting, but almost everything had been stripped clean, probably from other people who were headed south.

I didn't see another person until I was more than halfway across long island, the first thing I did when I heard footsteps was duck into a nearby alley. I held my breath as I could hear the footsteps growing closer, and anguished panting rasped out into the air. I retreated further back into the alley, keeping close track of the street I had been walking on just moments before.

A man ran by the alley, and another soon followed, both paying me no notice.

My hands curled into fists and my feet itched to run after them. From what little I had caught of the first guy, he didn't look so good. I've seen people get hunted down and slaughtered for what I could tell was no good reason. I could never do anything about it, too risky, but I couldn't help but feel like I should be able to do something.

I bit the interior of my cheek, and walked deeper into the alley, trying to forget the panicked man being chased. I couldn't risk trying to help some guy who could easily fuck me over for my trouble, I told myself. The logic appealed to me, so I did my best to forget having seen anything at all.

I kept walking, my backpack weighing heavier on my back than it did a minute ago.

* * *

><p>The sun was going to be setting pretty soon. Thankfully, the full moon was coming either tomorrow or the next day, so there would be plenty of light to walk by. But, it still gets cold so fast when it's dark, I was going to have to find shelter somewhere nearby the beach. There were some caves around Montauk, if you knew where to look for them, so I wasn't too concerned.<p>

I used to love when my mom drove me to Montauk, even the ride over was fun, because we would drive through the Hamptons. I remember how beautiful everything was; glamorous summer homes of the rich and famous, fully loaded mansions, pristine lawns kept in order even during the off season so the homeowners could always walk into a beautiful beach house that looked like it belonged in a modern fairy tale.

It was a place of things I'd never experienced, and probably never would, but sometimes, watching it drive by in the car made Montauk feel more special.

I know, I know, _technically_, Montauk is a part of the Hamptons. But, I've never really considered it part of the Hamptons as much as the Hamptons bordered it. Montauk had a totally different atmosphere from the rest of the Hamptons, even with that surf lodge making it a little more crowded than I would like sometimes. But once you get deep into Montauk, where it's all quiet and national parks, then you realize the difference. Montauk was not the Hamptons.

Back then, before the end of the world, the Hamptons felt like a pleasant welcome home, giving me little glimpses of things I might have been able to achieve, if I tried hard enough or got lucky enough, Before finally crossing the threshold to Montauk's inviting arms.

Now? Now, it felt like walking through the gates of hell.

As it turns out, when the world ended, and laws were forgotten overnight, 99% of the population had some economic bitterness issues they suddenly felt compelled to act upon. Being rich seemed to sour quickly when the world ends, and no hidden bank account on some island is going to help much against an angry mob.

What few houses weren't burnt down were trashed beyond recognition. Walls were torn down and ripped apart, glass still sprinkled the scruffy-looking lawns, expensive sports cars were flipped, crushed, and in once case, on the roof of a 3 story high mansion.

The place was even more abandoned than Manhattan. At least there I would occasionally see another survivor in the distance or someone poorly trying to hide in the shadows. The Hamptons were just plain empty. I probably couldn't find another person wandering around if I wanted to. I knew there was no point in trying to loot anything, everyone in the Hamptons had either died or went south, and they took anything of value with them.

Not that I needed much at the moment. I had a small pocketknife, backpack filled with a combination of granola, lighters, two water bottles, and- get this- a box of gauze and a half-used bottle of _antiseptic._ Thanks to a miraculous night holding up in a drugstore I had assumed to have been stripped clean at first, I was richer than I'd ever been.

Relatively speaking, of course.

_'richer than ever and no one to share it with'_ A more well-loathed part of my mind reminded me, with a voice suspiciously similar to my old geometry teacher. I shook off the thought the best I could and kept walking, ignoring the roar of silence between my footsteps.

* * *

><p>Before I knew it, I had found myself walking out of the prickly shrubs of Napeague State Park, and onto Montauk's beach.<p>

The water was cold-looking, and the beach was absolutely covered in seaweed and rocks that made it look pretty uninviting. Beach grass looked withered and lifeless, like it would crumble to the slightest touch. Litter was scattered here and there, and there was an almost uncanny amount of driftwood, and I was half expecting to see a beached boat behind it all.

The second my foot hit the sand, I knew I shouldn't have come. The world turned upside down and I felt like I had been punched in the gut, driven a good fifty feet skywards and I was in the process of falling back down. My stomach churned to send it's last meal back, but I managed to gulp it down with what little focus I had left. I knew seeing Montauk would probably hurt, but I also figured enough time had passed for me to at least handle it. Instead, I ducked my head low and tried amiably to fight against the sting in my eyes.

My mom was dead, I knew that, I had grieved for it, I had cried about it, I had gotten angry about it, and I thought that it was something I had been able to move past, if only a bit. But being back on Montauk made it feel raw, and new again, like ripping off a scab when the original scrape hadn't had nearly enough time to heal.

But, at the same time,I knew it was a little like antiseptic. Hurts like hell to use it, but for your own good in the end. A part of me felt like I needed to do this, whether it be out of respect for my mom, or to just get it all out, I wasnt sure, but you'd bet your ass I listened to that over the parts of me that told me to turn tail and run.

I think my mom would be proud of me for doing it too, and that thought made it just a bit easier.

It was colder on the beach than it was behind the dunes, and the ocean wind cut through my jacket like it wasn't even there, but I found it hard to care. I needed to do this. Plus, the beach was like a second home for me, and this one wasn't ruined by the end the world. It felt a little something like _normal,_ for once.

As I walked along the beach, breathing came easier, in that special type of way when you don't realize you'd been having trouble until you had started to breath normally again. It felt like I had only now grown accustomed to an extra weight in my chest that had been there for a long time.

I raised my head, having had more than enough of a blurry view of the sand, and looked out to the sea.

Shit, that looked cold. Should have come here before hypothermia was a guarantee from a little dip. I could use a swim.

Or water.

A shower, even.

I didn't have much of an idea of how bad I smelled, but the last time I saw running water, much less soap or deodorant, was months ago, and I might have hidden under a corpse somewhere between now and then. I'd rather not think about it.

Actually, I'm not sure if i would even have wanted to go for a swim if it was the middle of august. The sea look oddly uninviting for a reason beyond just the threat of losing toes. Like every square inch of the water was a riptide waiting to drag me under and to my death. It was a weird feeling.

I lost track of how much time I had been on the beach, but the sun was starting to set, the sky glowing gold on the horizon while the sky dimmed down for the night. I should find some shelter soon.

Of course, when I actually did, I almost cried again.

I hadn't been walking for more than three more minutes when I was suddenly struck by where I was, when I saw that crummy wooden house just across the old Montauk highway. I broke out into a run a second before my mind decided I needed to reach that cottage.

The cottage my mom and I would stay at.

It almost seemed like it was impossible; those weathered, gray shingles could pop off if you hit the house with a baseball too hard, how the hell was it supposed to stay standing after the fucking apocalypse? The floorboards creaked when you walked on them, and the doors were just a little loose on their hinges.

And yet, here it was, maybe a little worse for wear, and probably looted, but it was still _there_. A bubbling feeling rose up in my chest, like my lungs were filling with soda water and tickled the back of my throat.

The shades were drawn, but the windows were intact. A few shingles had fallen off, and littered the ground around the cottage, and sure, maybe it didn't look so great. But it was home. A little slice of my old life, before all the chaos, and death. before Paul, before everything, still here. I'd never felt like hugging a building before, but if I said I wasn't tempted right then and there, I'd be a filthy liar.

I walked around the cabin. Everything was a little run-down, but still standing. I felt refreshed, energized, and at the same time, a quiet sadness waited patiently for the initial rush of finding the cabin standing. A bitter pill of nostalgia I was more than willing to accept if it meant sleeping in this cabin again.

I wondered if the key was still in the main office building where mom would go to rent the cabins. If I could get my hands on it, I could get in without breaking a window.

I drifted towards the door, and put my hand on the knob. Unlikely, but, hey, worth a try.

I twisted the knob, pushed on the door, and like a miracle, it opened.

A breathy laugh escaped me, not sure how to react to this pileup of serendipity. I pulled an arm out of my backpack strap, taking a tentative step into the cabin, a slight smile playing on my lips and… found someone already in the cabin.

Good feeling gone now.

My head cracked against the ground as my attacker tackled me. Still reeling, I felt someone's knee press against my stomach, and a flash of coppery metal. The next thing I knew, a knife the size of my forearm was pointed at my neck.

Oh, fuck this. _One_ good thing happens, and I get a knife at my neck for the trouble. Was I a serial killer in a past life or something?

"Leave." A voice- female- hissed at me through clenched teeth.

My eyes suddenly shifted focus from the knife, to the owner thereof.

She looked like the stereotypical California dream girl, golden, curly hair, tied up in a sporty-looking ponytail, tan skin, cute little nose that, I would grudgingly admit, would probably feel perfect to kiss in a better time. However, two things completely wrecked that image: Her face was littered with scars of varying degrees of freshness, some looking especially old, and cold, piercing grey eyes, unyielding and intense.

A fun fact I had learned about myself in the past for months: In spite of my determination to stay alive, I seemingly enjoyed taunting death without thinking. It had landed me into a fair share of trouble, leading bad situations to worse in the blink of an eye. I almost had my finger chopped off because I had no handle of what came out of my mouth when faced with something that could probably be the death of me.

"Fuck off, this is my Cabin." I spat.

Yeah, just like that.

Her eyes narrowed and her lips curled back, in a snarl. "What sort of position do you think you're in?"

Dead, in a few seconds, probably.

"Cowgirl."

The look on her face almost made it worth it, (teach her to straddle poor, innocent, guys.) for the second or so of dumbfounded shock that was there before she turned into all fury and no remorse. She lifted the knife away from the neck, and drove it into my bicep.

I flinched, waiting for the pain, and the warmth of my blood flowing from the laceration she had given me… but it never came.

I glanced at the knife, the one sticking out of my arm, definitely there. Still nothing. On impulse, I moved my arm a bit. It moved freely, like the knife wasn't even embedded in my arm, and not a drop of blood could be seen, much less a cut.

"That's messed up." I muttered.

Above me the girl hissed something, I didn't quite catch it, but it sounded like a different language. I looked up at her, she regarded me with the respect you give to a leaky trash bag, and pulled the knife out of me. Still no pain.

"So," I said, slowly, casually. "you stabbed me… and nothing happened."

From the glare she was giving me, I was slowly sliding down that scale of respect.

After a few painfully awkward seconds of one-sided (Okay, maybe like, one and a half. She just tried to stab me.) glaring, I sighed. "Are you going to get off?"

Anger flared for a moment before quickly being hidden away by her stony face. She held her glare for a few more seconds before her eyes wrench shut and she pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand. "_Just_… Go." she flicked her knife to the right, pointing towards another cabin a few hundred feet away. "Go break into that other Cabin, there's no one there."

Anger swelled in my chest again. Who was she to order me around? "I already told you no. You're in my cabin, you go to the other one!"

She scoffed. "_Your_ cabin? This is a rental, it's no more yours than it is mine."

I tilted my head back a bit, digging it into the ground so I could size her up the best I could give my… unfortunate position. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." She nodded slightly, like she was agreeing with herself, since no one else was going to.

"I was conceived in this Cabin."

Her face flushed red for a fraction of a second and I can see her sputtering. Her eyes tell me the words she failed to spit out were somewhere along the lines of _'I cannot believe you just said that.'_. It did not taken them long to harden again. "What the hell does that have to do with anything? It's my base of operations now, so you'll just have to suck it up and-" She stopped short, the color draining out of her face.

She practically vaulted off me into an upright position, her head darted from side to side, and tossed her knife from her left hand to her right, every inch of her body was like a spring loaded coil, ready to snap out at a moment's notice.

"What are-"

"Shhhh!" She hissed as anger glinted in her eyes once more.

Just when I was about to try that taunting death habit again, I heard whatever it was that was probably making her so tense. A scraping noise, like metal on stone, and hissing, like a snake, but far louder.

"Get in." She said in a harsh whisper, jerking her head towards the Cabin.

"What?"

"Just _get in._" She said through clenched teeth, flashing me a desperate, but still incredibly angry look.

Well, I wasn't complaining.

Heaving myself up, and slinging my backpack a little higher up on my shoulder, I walked towards the cabin, slowly, quietly. I had interacted with a few people since the end of the world, and quickly learned that deliberate and slow was the only way to move around anyone, myself included. Any other way would result in constant flinches or readying of weapons. But something about the way she was acting told me I should emphasize the quiet part.

As soon as I had passed behind her, I could feel her slowly walking backwards, practically at my heels. A little unnerving, but I figured, if she wanted to kill me, then she probably wouldn't have used the magic non-stabbing knife. That logic seemed firm enough, or maybe I'd just finally lost it.

The room was dark, the front room of the cabin didn't have any west-facing windows, and with the sun so soon to set, it might as well have been nighttime. I could barely make out any shapes, even as my eyes began to adjust to the dim light.

I was about to get all nostalgic and weepy over the cabin, when a hand, the girls, clasped over my mouth and I heard the door shut quietly behind me. Alarm bells rang in my head, but before I could really react, the hand pulled me back and down, and the girl shooshed in a tone that was probably supposed to be soothing. It missed the mark, just a bit, probably because she probably didn't have a soothing bone in her body.

I glanced back at her, her hand still firm over my mouth, expecting to see her with a rag of chloroform or something insidious, but instead only saw her slowly and carefully sitting down, that shitty knife still in her hands, but pointed nowhere at me.

"Ssssssisssssster, are you ssssssure you heard ssssssomething?" I could hear a muffled, hissy voice say from outside. It kinda sounded like what you would expect to hear coming out of a cheesy animated snake's mouth, and it would have been vaguely comical were it not for the fact the girl seemed to tense up even more when she heard it.

Whatever was going on, it looked like the girl had some idea of what was happening, so I decided if she was sitting down, I'd be smart to sit down too.

"Possssssitive," Another voice, this one a little more deep but still more-or-less feminine, in a throaty sort of way.

"Ssssssisssssster, there'ssssss nothing here!"

"No I'm ssssssure I heard..."

"Well did you _ssssssmell_?"

"... I'm not ssssssure…"

There was a shifting sound like something heavy was scraping against the ground, tearing it up. Then came another, and another, like alternating footsteps. I shot the girl a desperately confused look. Her expression was unreadable, though not being able to see it properly in the dark may have something to do with it

"Not ssssssure?! Ssssssstop wassssssting our time! We have Sssssswept thissssss beach all day!"

"Sssssstop whining. We're here to find demigodsssssss, not relax."

The grip she had on my mouth tightened slightly. Like I was going to open my stupid mouth anyways. I'm not that suicidal, and death certainly wasn't facing me down- yet.

"Maybe… In here…"

I could hear the more vigilant voice musing nearby, scraping grew louder as I could hear her- it, approaching the cabin.

The girl's hand fell off my face and to the door, fumbling with the doorknob for only a moment before turning the little lock on the knob with a click that I knew was quiet, but felt like it echoed through the cabin like a gunshot.

The doorknob turned not even a second later, and the door shook. I pulled myself into a crouch, turning slightly to face the door, just in case the door failed to lock properly, or whoever was on the other side could force it open. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the girl doing the same.

After a few painfully long moments, the door finally stopped shaking.

I could hear a rumbling noise coming from the other side of the door, and I knew it was not friendly.

Or human, for that matter.

I swallowed back a sinking feeling in my gut as the few tense seconds lingered, before I heard the shifting, rhythmic scraps of whatever was behind the door moving away from the cabin.

After I was absolutely certain I couldn't hear anything anymore, I let out the breath I hadn't been fully aware I was holding.

_Then_ the door busted open.

* * *

><p>I hoped to god that the granola bars would survive the impact with the terrifying snake woman's face.<p>

The… thing that had been on the other side of the door was nothing short of horrifying. It looked like a woman, provided said woman had skin so dry that it was practically scales, green scales, mind you, reptilian eyes, and two enormous tail-leg trunk things the thickness of telephone poles sprouting from her midsection. Not to mention the fact it was decked out in armor and armed to the teeth (which were very sharp-looking themselves, I must say.) with blades. She was also doing this weird flickering thing, like she would look like a blurry photograph for an instant before coming back into definition, which made looking at her painful, like looking into a blaring strobe light.

Basically, like my 8th grade physics teacher, Mrs. Burtshulk, but a little more ugly and part snake. Throwing my backpack at her face was a neigh-instinctual reaction.

Definitely-not-Mrs-Burtshulk was left dazed by my backpack, and apparently, that's all the girl needed to lung in close and stab her with the shitty non-stabbing magic knife.

She was screwed, I thought, until Definitely-not-Mrs-Burtshulk half-exploded, half-dissolved in a shower of golden light and my mouth nearly touched the floor.

"_Holy shit._" I said.

A hiss that had to be snake for 'I'll fucking kill you' sounded from outside, and I heard Definitely-not-Mrs-Burtshulk's sister change at the door.

The girl slid away from the hollow shell of collapsing armor Definitely-not-Mrs-Burtshulk left behind, out of the way of the door and locked eyes with mine. Oddly enough, she wasn't panicking, or was incredibly good at hiding it. "Grab the sword." She ordered, nodding towards the wall opposite to her.

There was an aluminum baseball bat where she nodded.

Okay, really?

Normally, I'd argue with her, but considering recent events, I was willing to go with this girl's orders, since she actually seemed to have a clue what the fuck was going on. I grabbed the bat, not really expecting it to weigh about 30 pounds, dragging it against the floor. I blinked, and took a look at the bat, half expecting something to be attached to it. Instead, in my hand was a sword.

It was the same color as the girl's knife, copper, but brighter, almost glowing. It had a small guard, with one side of it looking like it was partially broken off, and the grip was made of very worn leather. It was doing that weird flickering thing that Definitely-not-Mrs-Burtshulk was doing, but instead of going blurry, it was flicking between a sword and a bat.

I tried to shoot the girl another desperately confused look, but she was focusing intently on the door, and I could hear the monster on the other side not ten feet away, hissing more assumed snake profanities at us. I lifted the sword, placing both of my hands on the grip, and tried to look like I knew what I was doing.

This one was bigger than Definately-not-Mrs-Burtshulk, and she came in swinging with a scimitar in each hand. It was a wonder she fit in the door. She had more armor, and a lot of gold jewelry adorning her body that looked comically gaudy. She was also doing that annoying flickering thing, which I was really hoping wasn't going to become a thing if I survived this.

The girl rolled out of the way as the gaudy snake woman let out a hiss, her snake-legs shaking and rumbling, reminding me of a rattlesnake. With the girl out of swinging distance all of her focus turned on the only other person in the room.

Oh fuck, that's me.

She swung at me with both of her blades, and awkwardly, I shoved the bat-sword in-between me and her swords. When they clashed together, I nearly dropped mine, only just barely holding onto it, as her swords clashed against mine, one only locked in place thanks to the handguard. Numbing pain shot up the whole of my arms, and while I'm not the strongest guy around, this snake woman could probably bench press my old apartment building, and I was not going to win any battle of force with her. Oddly enough, I found myself not dazed, but instead, hyper-aware. The sword-bat stopped flickering and became a definite sword, as did the snake woman, who somehow got more hideous in high-def.

The girl made her move quickly, running for the snake woman with her knife ready, but the snake woman was good, the sword that was uselessly pressed against the guard flew off in a moment, and swung around to meet the girl, who only narrowly blocked it herself, stumbling back, with her knife trembling against the scimitar, her face twisted in pain.

The snake woman let out an unfitting giggle, throwing her head back, it quickly devolved into a throaty hissing laugh. "Sssssso weak!" she crowed. "Give up now, and I will grant you quick death and only mild dissssssmemberment!"

I grit my teeth. She was right. I was barely holding on to my sword, which was a feat in and of itself considering I'd never held one a day in my life, and the girl couldn't handle this behemoth alone. If the agonized expression told me anything, it looks like she might have been wounded before this.

"_Erre es korakas._" The girl hissed through clenched teeth.

Whatever that meant, it got the snake woman's attention as she turned to face the girl, and hissed something at her, I didn't really pay attention, because I was trying really hard to not make my jaw fall to the ground in amazement at how cocky this snake woman was.

In the early days, when a lot of people were still in New York, I had gotten into a few fights of the 'to-the-death' variety. Gotten stabbed once, maybe twice or five times, I didn't count. Before then, the worst fight I had been in never got above a few punches, so I had a to learn how to deal with someone who genuinely has no qualms ending my life, it was rough, but I managed.

But, even as an amateur, I quickly learned to never take your eyes off anyone involved. Even that sickly looking kid can get in a sucker stab that'll be the death of you if you're not aware. When you take your eyes off your opponent; that's when you lose fights. Maybe this wasn't a knife fight like I was used to, and maybe this was my first time holding a sword, but the principal should still hold up.

I was still fighting against the pressure of the scimitar, unsuccessfully, mind you, driven back a centimeter more each second from the weight of the sword.

Well, this has a chance to kill me instantly, but, hey, I was still gonna die if I didn't try it.

I jumped back, letting the sword dip and go slack in my hand, letting it be pushed back by the scimitar. All of the force that the snake woman had been putting into pressuring me was suddenly released, and it threw her off balance. My arms felt like jell-o, but I tightened my hold again and swung wildly for her hand, hoping to god it would at least get her hand off the sword for a second.

Instead, I got her hand off her body. The scimitar clattered uselessly to the ground, with the hand still gripping the hilt.

The snake woman bellowed, and, apparently having not learned her lesson, brought all of her focus back on me. Not missing a beat, the girl parried the sword and tried to lunge for the snake woman again, this time, in her guard, but one of the gigantic snake tails hit her in her midsection, like some sort of snake kung-fu kick, and send her flying back. The girl, somehow, in her flailing, managed to slice open the wrist of the snake woman, and the second scimitar clattered to the ground with another shriek of pain.

Not wanting to wait for her to recover or willing to let her get a sword back in her hand, I lunged, slashing at the snake woman with as much strength as I could, only to get sucker punched by another snake tail kung-fu kick, sword clattering out of my hand and falling flat on my ass.

I blinked, dazed, feeling the weight of the snake woman press down on me with her scaly leg. When my head finally stopped spinning, I saw the snake woman cast a glance over her shoulder, checking on the girl, probably, before turning back to me with a cruel grin of snaggly fangs.

"You Ssssshould feel honored, to die by my hand issssss not a pleassssssure all demigodssssss enjoy." She toyed with the hilt of the sword I had used to cut off her hand, her eyes shifting to it like it was poison every so often.

It struck me how similar the blade was to the girl's weird knife that either doesn't work or worked _incredibly well_. Now that I thought about it, the girl's blade did that soft glowing thing too.

Then, I had an idea. A really stupid one. My mom turning in her grave stupid. But seeing as I was pretty much dead anyways, I had nothing to lose. The girl was probably unconscious on the floor from that hit, or whatever injury she looked like she had earlier was otherwise making it impossible for her to help right now. I was probably on my own, and I was out of other options. Of course, or this plan to even begin working, I had to give into that bad habit of taunting death while staring into it's face. I made a quick promise to myself to kick that habit if I managed to survive, but right now, it might just work in my favor. Might.

"I guess it'll be half as many from how on, huh?" I said with a cocky grin that I tried very hard to make it look shit-eating instead of terrified. The look on her face told me I should be flashing the latter.

An unsettling rumble came from somewhere in the back of her throat, and she narrowed her pupils into incredibly thin slits just before plunging the sword into my sternum.

I flinched, closing my eyes. I think that helped make it convincing, or maybe, because it was just real. In the end it was just a hunch that the sword wouldn't hurt me, a rather weak one at that. I had to hope my hunch was on the money though, because I seriously did not want to explain how I got myself gored to my mom.

I swallowed nervously, waiting. A few seconds passed and I still didn't feel anything. I could hear the snake woman laughing, but it was distant compared to the rolling thunder of my pulse in my ears. After swallowing down my fear the best I could manage, I wrenched open my eyes, and couldn't help but gasp.

The sword was impaled neatly in my chest, and I wasn't sure if my stupid plan worked or if I had just gone into shock. I stared at the sword, and then looked up at the snake woman with smug satisfaction written all over her face. I swallowed thickly, which I took as a good sign, since I wasn't sure if someone with a sword in their sternum could swallow.

With trembling hands, I reached for the blade's hilt. It was just barely short enough for me to be able to grip it firmly, but I'd never be able to pull it out if I was actually skewered.

"Feissssssty, aren't you?" The snake woman above me purred. "I like that in a demigod. I'm ssssssure your friend will be the ssssssame. But, it'ssssss too late for you. Even if you could pull that ssssssword out, you'd bleed out." She let out another one of those creepy giggles that didn't sound right coming from her.

I mumbled some gibberish, wiggling the sword in my hands and felt no pain when it moved around. Just like the knife. Screw my C- average, I might just be a bona fide genius. Or in shock and delirious.

"What wassssss that?" She craned her head in a little bit, smiling down at me

"I said," Trying to make my voice feel breathless and ragged, masking the grin that was threatening to erupt all over my face with a pained expression."Your bling... looks like tacky, plastic, convenience store jewelry."

Her face dropped, as did the penny.

I pulled the sword out of my chest, straight through my lung and rib cage as if they were air, and swung it at the leg that was holding me down.

At the last second, she reared back, but she was too slow. The sword cut through that telephone pole's worth of snake like it was a hot knife cutting into butter. The snake woman fell back, leaving her right leg lying lifelessly on my stomach.

The snake woman screeched quickly rolled over, facing me, her golden eyes bloodshot and her face the picture of hatred. Her eyes darted to the scimitar on the ground with her hand still attached, and she dove for it. Scrambling, I struggled under the weight of the snake leg, shoving it off me while my mind, still trying to figure out if I now had a gash between the left side of my body, was making focusing and breathing a little difficult.

However, the snake woman never got her chance, as the girl jumped on top of her back and with a grunt, slid her knife between the shoulder blades of the snake woman. She let out a short gasp before, _finally,_ explode-dissolving into a flash of gold light, taking her massive snake leg along with her, and leaving only gaudy jewelry and foul-smelling yellow powder to remember her by.

My muscles all decided that my adrenaline rush was over, and promptly decided to go limp. I sprawled myself out on the cabin floor, looking up at the ceiling, breathing heavily with aching arms and half-shattered nerves.

After a few blissful seconds of living in a state other than confused panic, my hand shot up to feel at my side, confirming once and for all that I was still in one piece. I sighed, taking a deep breath with both lungs this time, my brain finally seeming to get the picture.

"Percy." I blurted breathlessly. My eyes wandered over to the girl who sat on her hands and knees over the powdery remains of the snake woman, who stared at me in a way that did not feel wholly friendly. "Percy Jackson."

After a few seconds, I finally saw her shoulders slump, just the tiniest bit, and she sighed.

"Annabeth Chase." She said as she shifted into sitting, legs crossed and her knife still in hand.

I grunted, pushing myself up off the ground and into the fetal position, the sword left on the floor. I stared at the door, as it swing slightly from the sea breeze, for god knows how long, until words finally bubbled through my mouth, unbidden.

"Thanks," I blurted, caught in a half daze. I felt my cheeks go hot, but I kept staring out the door, hoping she wouldn't notice if I played it cool. "For making them explode. Couldn't figure out how to do that."

"You're taking this surprisingly well," She said, her tone somehow managing to be casual and suspicious at the same time. "Was this your first time seeing one?"

I let out a short, airy laugh that cracked about halfway through. "No," My voice was unsteady as I shook my head, playing out the scene in my head over again, the surreality of it finally crashing down on me. "Can't say I've ever seen one of those…"

"_Dracaenae._"

"Dracowhatevers." I snapped, making an abrupt, dismissive gesture in her direction. "First time seeing them. And, trust me, I'm not taking this well. I just have been a little too busy trying to survive to actually freak the fuck out like I've wanted to." I ran my hands through my hair, and mussed my hair once they reached the back of my head.

I shot the girl a panicked look, and swallowed, which felt a lot like trying to down a cotton ball. "Do you mind explaining everything that just happened because I'm having a little fucking trouble figuring this shit out."

She sighed, like me freaking out was wearisome to her. "Just calm down,"

"Don't fucking tell me to calm down!" I shouted. "I just fucking cut off a snake woman's snake leg and that's not even the most fucked up part of this!"

She raised an eyebrow at me, though only slightly, her face otherwise impassive and guarded, and we had a staredown. After a few good, long, infuriating seconds, she closed her eyes, and sighed once more, this time, throwing her whole body into the action, relaxing tense muscles. When she opened them again, her expression was no longer so guarded. She still seemed annoyed, but not in a bored way, more of a sympathetic kind of annoyed, like she understood why I was acting the way I was, but made no effort to hide the fact that she felt I was being unreasonable.

"You want an explanation, right?" Her voice sounded a considerably more relaxed, and she moved her body slightly along with her words.

I nodded.

"Well, then let's close that door and get some seats. This is gonna take a while." She dragged a hand down her face, suddenly looking wholly tired.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Told you It'd be longer.<em>


	3. A Little Post-Modern Ancient History

Neither of us looked like we wanted to close that door, but Annabeth not being capable of standing was a pretty convincing argument.

Not that she didn't try, because she certainly did, but the second she tried to put any pressure on her left leg, she crumpled. I could see blood beginning to stain the leg of her pants about down the shin. An old gash must have opened up sometime in the fight, and judging by the amount of blood that had already soaked through her pant leg, it must have been a nasty one.

She made a face and spit out some more of that foreign language(latin, maybe?) she used when she was unhappy, rolling up her pant leg carefully, wincing as she went. Eventually she pulled the pant leg all the way up to her knee, leaning down for a closer look at her bloodied leg.

If a cut could be furious, hers definitely fit the bill. It probably went deep, almost to the bone, around the edges it was crusty with scabs, and the skin surrounding it was red and puffy. It looked like she got it recently, and had probably just closed up naturally, and hadn't got anything close to treatment in the meantime.

Her head suddenly snapped to me and we made eye contact. She must have realized I'd been staring. Great, now she probably thinks I'm a creep, if that stupid cowgirl comment didn't make her think that in the first place. Oh, god, why did I even say that? I know I'm stupid, especially when I'm about to die, but that was a completely different level of stupid.

"Shit," I breathed, trying to shake away the nervous electricity lingering from the attack mixing with the sudden flush of embarrassment. "Shit, hold on, just, hold on." I heaved myself back on my feet, stumbling for a moment before i got my bearings.

I squinted at the door and saw my backpack lying next to a pile of gold dust that Definately-not-Mrs-Burtshulk left behind.

I looked back at Annabeth and held out my hand in a stopping motion. "Hold on," I repeated, dumbly, trying to sound reassuring. She raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth like she was about to say something, but I broke eye contact before she could begin, walking over to my backpack, and fishing it out of the pile of gold dust, and shaking off whatever residue clung to it.

I closed the door, giving the lock a little turn, which somehow worked, much to my pleasant surprise. I slug the backpack onto my shoulder, zipping it open and rummaging though it's contents as I shuffed nearer to Annabeth, eventually flopping down beside her. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her tense up and grip her knife a little tighter, but I ignored it.

Eventually, within the mess of granola bars(only slightly crushed, by the looks of it) I fished out the box of gauze, and the bottle of antiseptic spray. I uncapped the bottle of antiseptic and gave it a little shake.

"This'll sting," I mumbled, spraying a quick line down the length of her wound, earning a quick, quiet hiss from the girl. "couldn't get the nice stuff." I re-capped the bottle and placed it carefully back into the bag.

"That's fine by me." She said quietly. I could feel her studying my actions, waiting for me to make a wrong move. I couldn't blame her, I would do the same thing in the opposite situation. I opened up the box of gauze, tearing at the cardboard, and peered inside. Four rolls. I'd have to use it a bit sparingly if I wanted it to last, but that gash was a problem that needed attending to.

"You don't have to-" She started, her annoyed tone telling me that I had been staring at the open box long enough to look hesitant about helping her.

"It's fine." I waved her off, pulling out a roll from the box and slowly, carefully, beginning to dress her wound. If I wanted to bandage this thing remotely right, was going to need the entire role to tie it tightly, with no medical tape to secure it. It didn't bother me too terribly though, not after she just saved my ass, and especially not if she was going to explain everything to me.

"You've never dressed a wound before, have you?"

I blinked, not realizing I had been spacing out. What little work I had done on her leg was messy and looked like it was barely going to function as a bandage. I looked away sheepishly, and coughed. "Ah, well… No. No, not really." I didn't need to be looking at her to know she was rolling her eyes.

"You repeat yourself a lot." She said dryly, dropping her knife and taking hold of the bandages and shooing my hands off of them. I watched her bandage her gash with almost professional grace that had my cheeks flush in embarrassment. "Where'd you get these by the way?"

I took the box and tossed it back into my backpack, zipping it closed, shrugging. "Spent a few nights in a Rite Aid in Queens. Found both under some rubble in the stockroom. Most looters are actually pretty bad at leaving no stone unturned."

"And you are?" she asked with a grunt, knotting the gauze and securing it into position, with a fair amount of it still usable. She cut off the surplus with her ever-inconsistent knife, holding it out for me.

I shrugged again. "I'm more stubborn than most, at least." I took the leftover gauze and shoved it into the first little opening on the backpack I found that could fit it, which happened to be a little pocket on the strap.

"Well, thank the gods for that," She muttered, smoothing out her dressings and placing a cautious amount of weight on her leg. Pain twitched across her face and she _tsk-_ed.

"Can you even walk?"

Her grey eyes flashed angrily at me for a moment, and I could feel her barriers going back up, it was a struggle to not flinch on reflex. I wondered if I had somehow insulted her, but slowly, she exhaled, and the flash of anger slowly faded into the background noise of her impassive face. "Not as much as I'd like to be able to," She admitted slowly. "But I could if I needed to."

I scrunched my face and pursed my lips, studying her, glancing down at the ginger way she positioned her leg, and how quickly she rectified it when she caught me staring. Eventually, I sighed, shrugging my backpack higher up on my shoulder, and holding out my arms, opened palmed. She stared at them for a second, then threw me a perplexed expression. I groaned.

"C'mon."

"'C'mon' what?"

"You can't walk. I'll carry you."

She gave me another blank expression, studying me, before the corners of her mouth quirked up in the slightest of smiles, and she snorted. Like a splash of ice water to the face, I came to the abrupt realization that she wasn't just pretty, but seriously beautiful. She wasn't perfect, far from it, little scars old and new littered her body all over, but somehow, that made her look better. It's like the little smile drew all the imperfections together and smoothed them out, made her feel natural and beautiful at the same time. I felt like a cloud of butterflies had emerged somewhere in my large intestine. And this was just a _half-_smile_._ My mouth may have dropped just a bit.

"With those arms? Bridal style?" She said, shaking me out of my stupor. When I focused back on her, she had an obnoxious all-knowing, amused look on her face that shattered the golden image that I had just peaked at, and I scowled."Please, I can see them trembling. You botched the block in that fight and tried to stop the force instead of bending with it and parrying. You won't be carrying anything of significant weight for another few hours at least."

My eyebrows knit together, and my jaw locked as my lip threatened to curl up in a snarl. "Well maybe if you didn't leave me in the line of fire- swords, whatever, then maybe I would be able to carry you."

Her smile shattered, and a small part of me mourned the loss of that beautiful girl as the grizzled, angry one with the sour face came back."You're going to blame _me-_"

"You're the one who just told me to grab the fucking sword without _any_ explanation." I interrupted, my hands retreating to my sides as balled fists.

Her eyes narrowed."Well, excuse me for not having the time to train your sorry ass on swordplay when I was busy trying to save both of our lives."

"Oh yeah, you were doing such a fine job on your own with this." I said, rolling my eyes and jabbing a finger at her bandages

"I wouldn't have had to do _anything_ if you hadn't gotten all sentimental over this stupid Cabin and gone over to the other one."

"Listen here Chase," I growled, leaning in closer to the girl, grabbing her arm. "This cabin isn't stupid." I tried to sound intimidating, or at least tough, but my voice faltered near the end.

I imagined my mom's face, wrought with concern, pursing her lips, her eye prying for any answers she could get before she actually asked what was wrong. She hated seeing me upset, especially when we were at Montauk. Montauk was supposed to be our little escape, when things like being a low income single mother, or being the son of a low income single mother with no academic future in reasonable sight became too much to carry. It was a place where all the worries of the city weren't supposed to touch us.

I took a deep breath, closing my eyes, blocking out Annabeth Chase. I needed to calm down. I was _not _going to lose it here.

I wrenched open my clenched fist, exhaling, and opened my eyes again, seeing Annabeth Chase, in all her fully guarded glory, leaning away from me, her hand raised like rubber band ready to snap. I released her from my grip with a sigh, looking away.

Tension rippled in the air, and like a wave it crumbled down on itself, turning into a harmless splash of sea foam. I looked down, and took another deep breath. I glanced up at her again, and she was eyeing me warily again, but the hand that had been raised was slowly falling back down to her side.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have grabbed you. It's just…" My fingers itched for a distraction, twitching wildly and painfully in hopes for something to come in to occupy them, but nothing could be found. "Me and my mom used to come here."

Recognition lit up on her face, and that seemed to bring her down just a bit. Thankfully, I didn't think I needed to explain any further, and hell, after my walk on the beach, I don't think I could. Everything still felt raw, even if my walk along the beach seemed a million miles away from where I was now.

I shuffled over to her side, and stretched an arm behind her.

"What are you-" She snapped, tensing all over again. God, she was touchy.

"You said I wouldn't be able to carry you bridal style, right?" I cocked my head to the side giving her a weak smile. "If you can't walk on that leg, then this the best I can do. Now, could you lift up your arm? This won't work without your help."

She stared at me, no saying a word, still calculating, and analyzing with that prying stare, but she lifted her arm for me nonetheless, picking her knife up from the floor in the process. I slipped my hand under her armpit and scooped her up, my other hand floating outwards stiffly in case she needed something to balance with, which, naturally she didn't. After a second of unsteady shifting on her feet, she found some relatively stable footing. She could probably make do with hopping if she needed to, but I'd been raised better than that.

"Room in the back has a bed." She muttered, testing a little weight on her bad leg.

"I know. It's my cabin, remember?"

"Keep telling yourself that, Jackson."

"Keep trying to deny it, Chase." I shot back. The words we shared should have felt light, almost friendly, but it was muddled by the lingering tension between us. You'd think that going through a life-or-death experience together would bond us for life immediately, or something, but, there was still a deep rift, and we were still strangers who barely knew each other's names.

We walked through the little dining room/kitchen of the cabin and it felt like a punch to my solar plexus. The room was brighter, golden rays of the setting sun filtering in through cracks in the closed blinds, giving the room a dim glow. The dining table was still there, but instead of the warm plate of blueberry pancakes that I had been used to, it was littered with paper, all running over each other and overlapping into a chaotic mess that reminded me far too much of my mom's desk in the few weeks before she sent in the copy of her novel that was approved for publication. Aside from that small detail, everything else was exactly how I would imagine it, a bit dusty and dreary, but that aesthetic came with the apocalypse.

We moved deeper into the cabin, down the hallway that lead into the rooms, and end of it I could see a door open, with a soft, unnatural glow coming from inside it. I stopped short for a quarter second. That was the room my mom would sleep in. I felt something approximately the size of a raccoon nest in my throat at the thought of entering it.

Annabeth, never missing a beat, spared a glance my way. "Something the matter?"

"S'nothing." I murmured, not willing to spare the glance back as I felt her eyes burning into me a little more so than usual. But thankfully, she didn't press.

When we hobbled into the room, the green lantern made me do a double-take.

The room was warm, far warmer than it had any right to be. The cabin was warmer than it was outside, since the ocean wind couldn't get in, but the cabin had never been built with the intention of people staying during the winter months. There was insulation, but it was minimal, and certainly not enough to warrant the sudden want to shed my jacket, and maybe the ratty sweatshirt I had underneath it as well. It was at least a good 60 degrees Fahrenheit in this room, and from what I could see, theonly possible source of heat was the small handheld lantern that glowed with green light.

Annabeth's elbow dug into my side. "Keep moving, or you'll be getting no explanation."

I gave her a sidelong glance, snorting, then turning my attention back to the lantern for another moment before shaking my head. After the day I've had, I was more than willing to just accept the magic green lantern without complaint. It made the room comfortable.

Together we walked the remaining few steps to the queen sized bed that had once been designated to my mom. The floorboards creaked in a belated 'welcome home' from the cabin. The same mattress was on the bed that I had always known, with that little, almost indistinguishable stain on it's side facing the entrance. We sat down on the side of the bed and I could hear her huff out a very subtle sigh she probably thought was hidden by the groan of the mattress.

The two of us untangled, and shifted away from each other. I slung my backpack onto the floor as she shifted back to put her bad leg up on the bed, re-inspecting the bandage. I started to pull off my jacket, before I remembered that the little flick knife I had been using was still securely in it's pocket.

I cast a quick glance over at Annabeth as she started to settle in, her knife lying at her side while she fussed with her wrappings, and I had to ask myself; Would she trust me now if she knew I had a weapon in my pocket, one that actually stabbed without fail? Do _I_ trust her enough to be unarmed?

Immediately, the voice of my mom started nagging in the back of my head. '_Percy Jackson! I cannot believe you would be so ungrateful to this lovely young lady for saving your life.'_

Oh yeah, lovely, I thought, it sure was lovely of her to stab me that first time.

The little voice came back softer this time. I could almost imagine her giving me a small smile, humoring my objections with just the tiniest hint of amusement that told me she did not approve in the gentlest way one can. '_Just try, okay Percy? She's giving you a chance, isn't she? The least you could do is try give her one too.'_

I couldn't help but smile just a bit at that. Yeah, that's exactly what she'd say. Silently, I told her voice that I'd try my best.

Falling back into the pattern of slow, careful, and deliberate movements, I fished the knife out of my pocket, and gently tossed it a few feet away from the bed, it landing against the floorboards with a soft _clink._

Annabeth gave me a scrutinizing look, eventually turning into something I would almost be crazy enough to consider impressed. I pulled my jacket off, and draped it on the bedpost. She rolled the leg of her pants back down, and a silence passed between us that was only a _little _tense, almost easy. Of course, it didn't last for more than a few seconds, but it was a miracle for edgy nerves. Annabeth was the one who decided to break the silence.

"So," She said, slowly, lacing her fingers, and toying with them idly. "I think it would be best if I started from the top, or otherwise, it probably, er, scratch that, it _definitely _won't make any sense."

"Alright," I nodded.

"Alright,"She echoed, her face scrunched up and her eyes flicked away, like she was thinking hard. It totally wasn't adorable. "What religion are you?"

I blinked. "What?"

"I asked what religion you are."

I gave her a look. "No, I get that, but, what does it have to do with anything?"

"Just answer the question, and I'll explain." She said, rolling her eyes.

"Look, I don't know, I never really thought about it." I shook my head, sighing harshly. "I celebrate Christmas."

"So you're Christian?"

"Not really,"

"Ugh," She groaned, tapping a finger on her knee impatiently. "Are you always this obtuse?"

I was pretty sure I wasn't an angle, so I didn't bother with a response. Though she must have caught my utterly lost expression, because she rolled her eyes again.

"Look," She said, shaking her head. "I'm not good at this, I'm not used to explaining this to people, just helping a few deal with it after they've had the news broken to them, so I'm just going to say it, alright?"

I nodded slowly.

"You know the Greeks myths, right? The Olympians, the heroes, the monsters."

"Uhh," I made a noncommittal gesture, shrugging. "Kinda, I guess."

I remembered a few from ancient history lessons from school. One of the few things that made history classes bearable were all the stories and myths we got to learn. That, and the fact that math reading were minimal in history classes in comparison to most other classes.

"They're real." Is what I heard, but I was certain that I had heard her wrong. I leaned back, turning all of my attention to her dangerously straight face.

"What?"

"The Olympians, the heroes, the monsters, all of them, real. All around you, in your daily life, they have been living, existing, fighting, warring, without you even noticing, but they're all real." She said, her face still the picture of stoicism.

A bubble of nervous laughter escaped my mouth, and I was suddenly wishing I had a T-shirt that read: 'I'm with crazy'. "What?" I repeated.

"I'm not repeating myself a third time." She huffed, crossing her arms and shooting a very unimpressed look my way.

I looked at her eyes. Grey and implacable, like a rock. I didn't see any hint of amusement on her face, and my psycho-detector was giving me infuriatingly mixed signals. What she said was crazy, but everything else about her all pointed to sanity. "But that's, that's impossible." I stammered.

Her lips puckered, and her eyebrows raised up slowly. "Really? After everything that just happened to you, you're still going to say it's impossible? I remember the phrase 'I cut off a snake woman's snake leg.' coming from you a minute ago, but the gods being real is where it becomes impossible?"

"That's," I tried to gasp out an argument. But there really wasn't one. there was no way to describe the snake women, except for monsters. "Thats…" I repeated numbly, my mind trying to clutch at an argument that refused to be found.

Normally when someone talks about monsters being real, you just blow them off, because monster are, well, monsters, not really anything. Just something kids are afraid live under their bed and don't pay rent. But the snake woman, that _was_ a monster. I had just removed the limbs of a monster. And as if that wasn't weird enough, I had been stabbed in the chest by a monster, and there wasn't a single scratch on me that would indicate that was the case.

And if monsters are real, then who's to say that she's not being serious?

"But," I said, before my mind could follow up with more words, leaving a lengthy pause Annabeth graciously allowed. "How did we… not know? Those snake women- you don't just _not _notice something like that. How could I- anyone- not know about that?"

"The mist."

"The what?"

"_The mist,_" She hissed, her fingers twitching and leg bouncing impatiently. "it's a veil that prevents mortals from seeing what's really going on and gives them something they can process rationally." she paused, her eyes going over to her knife, and her hand picking it up a moment later. "Tell me, what do you see?"

Confusion must have been permanently etched into my face by this point, because I tried to give her a confused look, but my face didn't move. "Your knife?"

"I mean _specifically,_" She spat, like she had explained it clearly to begin with. "Describe it to me."

Reluctantly, I complied, only to find it was doing that thing, the flickering thing the snake women and the bat-sword did, but it was always a knife. It was switching between a coppery double-sided knife, more of a dagger, really, and an impressively long and sharp silver steak knife.

"How are you doing that?"

"That's the mist." She said, squinting at her knife-dagger thing for a moment before a slight recognition flickered across her face and she returned her eyes to me. "You can easily process me holding a steak knife as a weapon, a bronze knife is more difficult to rationalize. Your mind questions it, so the mist shows you something easier. I'd bet the sword you were using earlier didn't look like a sword at first."

"It was a baseball bat before I grabbed it, but..."

"Exactly," She nodded. "now, normally, the mist is pretty much ironclad for mortals, but from what I can guess, the mist is deteriorating. So when something starts to have direct relevance to you as a threat or to counteract a threat, your sense of self preservation is able to overpower the mist and show you what's actually going on. Normally, even if they're being attacked, mortals won't see monsters as monsters, just something else they would see as threatening."

I tried to let that sink in. People, people I could have known, could have been attacked or even killed by monsters, and no one was ever the wiser. I leaned over the side of the bed, cradling my head in my hands as I let out a shaky breath. "That's so fucked up." I shook my head, staring at the floor. "That's _insane._"

"Though," Annabeth muttered to herself, like words were leeching from her thoughts to her mouth. "why now? Did something happen to Hecate or do they just not…" Her eyes caught mine for a second, and she must have realized I was already confused enough without her mumbling. She waved at me dismissively "Nevermind that, It's nothing."

I shook my head, returning it to my hands. I needed to get it together. So, sure, there could have actually been monsters in my closet when I was a kid, or maybe that snake woman actually _was _Mrs Burtshulk, but I survived so far. I could handle this. I still needed to know more anyways, so I would have to deal with it.

No matter how fucked up it is.

"How do you know all of this?" I asked eventually, releasing my head from my hands. "How'd you figure it out?"

"I've always known." She said, just a little too quick and too cold for me to not raise my eyebrows. "It's been my life since I was born."

"You're not about to rip your face off and tell me you're actually a monster too, right?"

She leveled a glare at me, that looked downright homicidal. I put my hands up, rearing back. "It's a joke, chill! I'm still trying to figure all this out, so It's not like I know any better."

She huffed a stray lock of hair from her face, before turning away. I got the distinct feeling like I was about to get the silent treatment, which was directly opposed to my plans. Anger burned lowly in my chest. It was just a stupid joke, why'd she have to be all temperamental over it?

Maybe she was… well, on 'shark week', you know? That couldn't be fun. Even my mom could be worn a little thin during her special time of the month. Take into consideration that Annabeth seemed to hold triple the aggression my mom had in her whole body in her pinky finger, and the fact that it was the apocalypse so she probably didn't have any- actually, no, shut up, brain,

I was stopping that train of thought, ADHD be dammed.

"So," I faked a little cough, covering my mouth with one hand and scratching at the side of my head with the other. "You didn't really answer my question, about how you figured this all out."

"Yes I did." She said as she folded her arms

"Not really…?"

"But I did. I told you I always knew."

"That's not _really_ an answer."

"Fine. I don't remember a time when I didn't have at least some idea. Is that enough of an answer for you?" The tone of her voice made me feel like I was starting to walk directly into a minefield. Curiosity whined against my skull like some neglected dog, pawing at the back of my head. Thank god I'm not stupid enough to listen to myself.

"Fine..." I sighed. I didn't want to give in so easily, but the two of us weren't exactly on the best terms as it was, and I felt like if I pushed too hard I was going to get locked out. I'd bring it back up later.

My eyes caught that flickering knife of hers, and I was reminded about how I had nearly gotten myself gored earlier. I then realized with a jolt that I had _forgotten _that. I mean, sure, today was a day of surprises, but come on.

"… What about your weird knife?" And the sword? I think they made me, like, Stab-proof, or something."

I could see her hand drifting idly towards her weapon. I had to keep reminding myself that it couldn't hurt me in order to keep myself from tensing up… of course i had no way of knowing if it REALLY couldn't harm me, but I tried to ignore that.

ADHD part of my brain said no, It's time to imagine explode-dissolving into gold dust.

However, Annabeth seemed little relieved by the question and she shoulders relaxed as she rolled her eyes. "It didn't make you stab-proof, genius, it just doesn't care enough about you to bother stabbing you."

"They don't care enough." I deadpanned.

"Nope," She said, popping the 'p'. "This knife, and the sword you were using, are both made of a material known as celestial bronze."

"Is this a myth thing? Because I don't remember reading any myths about swords that don't kill you when they stab you."

She directed a withering look my way for a few second before her brows furrowed. "Wait, sword? As in the sword I let you use?"

"Uh,"

"You got stabbed by your _own sword_?"

"Er, well, it was more like I taunted the snake woman into stabbing me with my own sword, I guess?"

She narrowed her eyes, leaning forward slightly,like she was trying to find any indication that I was joking, or maybe she was trying to calculate how stupid she thought I was. Probably both at the same time. She seemed sharp.

"In my defense," I splayed my hands out between us, leaning back just a bit. "I figured we were screwed anyways at that point, and if your knife didn't stab me, and the sword kinda looked like the knife, then maybe the sword couldn't stab me either."

She didn't stop staring intently at me, though now it looked like she was almost angry with me for… some reason. I hiccuped with nervous laughter, words flowing out like vomit in an embarrassing explanation of my poorly constructed plan. When I had finished, she was still staring. I fidgeted. She kind of reminded me of mom, the two times she had actually gotten a little more than halfway mad at me.

"It, uh, worked out fine though, right?"

"I'm not sure if you're the biggest idiot I've ever met, or just a savant for making the stupidest possible strategy that miraculously works"

"A servant to stupid plans…?" I asked, bewildered.

"A _savant_." She corrected with a sharp sigh. "Someone who has a high natural aptitude for a very particular field. In your case, probably suicidal plans. Next time, when your plan of action is 'Oh, I'm gonna let this monster stab me because the sword I'm using _looks _like it might not actually be capable, then wing it from there', buy time until you think of a less awful plan, dumbass."

I nodded dumbly. In spite of the fact that her words were harsh, I could see a little glint in her eyes, almost like she was impressed, if only a little.

Shit, that made her look pretty again. Now's not the time to think about how her grey eyes were actually really cool looking when they didn't have the settings locked in death stare mode, and actually didn't ruin the California dream girl thing as much as it made it different in a good way just like the scars.

Why did the crazy, Greek myth squatter girl in my Cabin have to be attractive on top of violent and pretty clearly smart? I think that's unfair.

"Right, so, why did my plan work, exactly?"

She blinked, like she had completely forgotten where this conversation originated. "Right, so, celestial bronze," She glanced at her dagger that she had been toying with. "Celestial bronze is incredibly hard, far harder than regular bronze, easily capable of cutting through steel, can kill a monster in a single solid blow, and even harm a god, if you're suicidal enough to try. It's the weapon of choice of anyone dealing with anything you would recognize as a 'myth'.

"When it comes to mortals though, well, as far as the blade's concerned, you're just not important enough to cut. Watch." She opened her hand out to me, gripping the knife in the other. I must have cringed, because she rolled her eyes at me. "Oh come on you baby, it' not like you haven't done this before."

Okay, that was hard to argue with. "Doesn't mean I'm looking to have it happen again." I grumbled, as I begrudgingly offered my arm to her. She took me by the wrist, and brought the knife down on me, carving up my arm like it was a piece of meat. Just as before, it didn't even tickle, but I couldn't stop my breath from hitching at the sight. It was… eerie, to say the least.

"Only the act of trying to cut you will make the celestial bronze fail to interact with you." She explained, pressing the flat of the blade on my skin and pressing it in lightly. "As such, celestial bronze weapons can bludgeon, but not cut mortals. Not that there are more than a small handful of celestial bronze weapons made for bludgeoning " She dipped the pressure into my skin, and the knife ghosted through my arm, sending a shiver up my spine

I withdraw my arm, rubbing in the places she sliced, or would have, clenching my fist. "That's still so messed up."

"Considering you were impaled, I'd figure you'd be over it by now." She shrugged.

I shrugged back, still rubbing my arm, confirming that, yes, it definitely wasn't the bloody stump that everything annabeth had done with that dagger would have normally reduced it to. "Hey," I muttered after a pregnant pause. "Why'd she stab me with the celestial bronze anyways? Shouldn't a monster, like, know this stuff?"

Annabeth didn't say anything for a long while. I don't know what she was thinking, but when I finally looked away from my arm, she had that analytical look plastered on her face again. She stopped staring almost immediately. "She must have just thought that you weren't a mortal."

"Well then, why did you stab me?"

"... Not everything that looks mortal actually is."

"You hesitated."

"So?"

"So what else could I have been aside from a 'mortal', or whatever?"

She looked away. "Who knows."

"You, probably." I said, my voice hard.

She glanced back at me, her icy demeanor returning with twice the force, chilling the room temperature by at least five degrees. I swallowed. She was like one of those popular girls at school who were in their senior year, but about ten times more terrifying because not only did she look _way_ smarter, she also looked like she didn't only end social lives.

"Look," I broken the silence eventually, my mouth long gone dry. "I don't know why you're so touchy about this, when you were the one who offered to explain things to me in the first place. I can understand if you don't want to tell me everything, hell, I'd probably be happier if I knew less than I already did, but, it's way too late for that." I took a deep breath. "So I need to know; all these Greek myths being actually real, and anything related to it, does it have anything to do with the world ending."

She appeared thoughtful for a second, before nodding slightly. "Yes. Though, I wouldn't call this the end of the world. It's more like the end of an era."

I sucked in another deep breath, slightly shakier this time. "Alright."

"Alright?" She raised an eyebrow, frowning, and gesturing for me to explain what that was supposed to mean.

My mouth felt like it was rapidly filling with cotton, but I ignored it and spoke as firmly as possible.

"Then I'm staying with you."

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: Percy you doof, you can't just ask people why they know about Greek myths living among us.<strong>_

_**Not gonna lie, this chapter had me struggling a bit. I actually intended for it to be much longer, but I couldn't get it to flow right after the end, I must have done like 5 different conversational pathways and they all dissolved into awkwardness. Oh well, baby's first cliffhanger it is. **_

_**In other news, I'm looking to make bi-weekly updates. I'm a bit of a slow writer, being ADHD myself I find focusing on writing for an extended period of time to be fairly difficult. If I can manage to focus myself, then I'll release the chapter earlier, but no earlier than a week after the latest update. Sound fair? Good, because it is.**_


	4. Spat Out Like Old Granola

"_Then I'm staying with you."_

If I thought Annabeth was closed off before, she rivaled fort Knox right about now, if fort Knox could manage to be on full lockdown while also having it's jaw hanging open in shock. Not that I really blame her. I had just said what was quite possibly the worst combination of words to ever come out of my mouth, given the circumstances.

Of course, it didn't take long for her to start looking ten different kinds of pissed off at me.

"_Hades_, no."

I couldn't even begin to question her choice of words, mostly because I was still reeling from my own. God, I'm stupid.

I wondered idly if I should start using 'gods' instead of god, on account of Greek myths apparently being real and still sort of around. We hadn't exactly talked about the gods yet, so I wasn't sure, but she did mention Zeus so- Wait, shit, now's _not _the time to take the long stroll down ADHD lane, I'm just sitting there looking like even more of an idiot than I already made of myself.

I winced. "That came out wrong,"

"There's no _other_ way for it to come out," She snapped, shooting me a glare that could have made a rioter go sane with fright. "the answer is no."

"You already said that." I grumbled.

"And the answer is still a resounding no. Hades, no. _Tartarus_, no." She crossed her arms like the conversation was over or something, but kept on glaring at me without so much as blinking, which was kind of creepy _and _intimidating.

I rubbed my hand against my face and sighed. Maybe I could pray to the Greek myths for patience. There had to be a Greek god for that, they had a god for practically everything. I wonder- _no! focus goddamn it._

"Look-"

"No."

I scowled. "I just-"

"No."

"Would you-"

"No."

"Can I-"

"Stop? Yes, you may."

"Annabeth, could you-"

"No."

"For fuck's sake,"

"My sentiments exactly."

I grit my teeth and I could feel anger rising in my chest. I know that post-apocalypse isn't exactly the time where second chances come cheap, but she was being ridiculous.

We held each-other's glares in silence for god knows how long, but eventually I realized that this angry staring contest wasn't getting me anywhere, especially when she was totally kicking my ass at it. I was starting to wonder if Annabeth even needed to blink.

"Anna-"

"No."

I threw my hands up in the air and slapped them on my thighs as they dropped them back down. The clap echoed uncomfortably through the silent cabin. I shifted back, rolling my shoulders in order to relieve a bit of the tension that locked them together. I clenched my jaw, trying to wrestle against my anger as I tried to think of a way to get her to listen for more than a half-second.

_What on earth did I do to deserve this?_ I wondered, running a hand through my hair out of exasperation. I just wanted to stay the night in my cabin, but instead I get snake women, an very snippy blonde girl, and a dwindling chance of being able to sleep in my cabin.

"Funny, I've been wondering the same thing." Annabeth commented dryly, pulling me from my thoughts. I raised an eyebrow at her until I realized she wasn't just throwing out random statement, and she was actually responding to me.

"I… said that out loud, didn't I?" She curled her lip up and nodded, shooting me a look that screamed 'I'm pretty sure you're subhuman'. I wanted to snap at her but then it hit me, that if I had said that to loud, it meant I had finally said something without her interrupting me. Twice, actually. Internally, I shrugged, might as well roll with it. "Well, at least we can agree on that, then."

Her face fell, like the very idea terrified her more than the snake women. "Agree on what?"

I shrugged. "This situation sucks."

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "We think that for completely different reasons that are in direct opposition to each-other."

"Does that really matter?"

"Yes, because you think this sucks because I said no. I think this sucks because you keep asking. Stop doing that, by the way."

"I don't see why it's such a horrible suggestion." I huffed, running a hand through my hair."I get that I was over the line for just _saying it_ like that, but, am I really that horrible?"

She looked at me like a teacher who had been just given a joke answer who definitely wasn't looking for one. It reminded me of middle school, except my answers weren't jokes, they just sounded like them. "It has nothing to do with you in particular, it's just a bad idea no matter what. We've known each-other for, what, about an hour at this point? If you survived this long as a-" She stopped short.

"What?"

She waved me off. I scoffed, but didn't even bother pressing. It'd get me nowhere, anyways. "Nothing. If you survived this long then I'd expect you to not just blindly trust the intentions of every person you've known for an hour. I'm certain you've had to interact with someone for at least that long in the past four months."

She wasn't wrong. I could recall more than a few instances where I'd spent time with people without any violence or bad blood shared between me and them, but things were never really anything less than tense. I remember one time I had taken shelter in a Chinese food place while a group of rioters were going ballistic outside for nearly two days. I was stuck there with a 20 something year old college student named Liz and her eleven year old little brother Jeff. We made a barricade together and set up a sleep schedule so someone would always be awake, and talked a little bit (mostly Jeff talking to me.) but when the coast was clear we barely even said goodbye to each other.

I wondered how they were doing now. I had overheard them talking about going to go to California once. It had been almost three months ago when we had gotten caught together, so I guess they were probably either there by now, close to it, or dead.

Of course, that situation had been entirely different. Liz was none-too subtly brandishing a hunting knife at me at almost every opportunity. Didn't exactly scream trustworthy as much as screamed how she would have no problem gutting me like a trout if I stepped one foot out of line.

Liz was pretty scary, now that I thought about it.

"Yeah," I said slowly. "I have." I fixed my eyes to the knife I had tossed to the ground and then to her. "But, they didn't disarm themselves when they talked to me."

Her eyes went to the knife, her mouth twisted like she didn't have a proper response to that. She shifted uncomfortably as she stared at the knife, her mouth opened wordlessly for a second,

"I have no proof that you're not armed with a different concealed weapon. It wouldn't be unreasonable for you to try to lull me into false sense of security with a disarming gesture." She eventually reasoned.

I squinted at her, my mouth hung open slightly and shook my head. "Did _you_ even believe what just came out of your mouth?"

She stayed silent, instead covered her mouth with her hand and propped herself up on her thigh, hunched over like that famous sculpture of the naked thinking dude. I picked at the creases of my battered jeans silently. I don't think we had been able to talk for more than five minutes without one pissing the other off, and I had to wonder if knowing the truth was really worth all this aggravation.

I clenched my jaw, narrowing my eyes at the little rips that had begun to form on my jeans. I wish I had taken some pants with me before I decided to leave Manhattan.

"Why do you want to… stay, anyways?" Her voice came out muffled, so I couldn't tell what her tone was.

"If I tell you, will you let me?" She raised an eyebrow, nonplussed, and I shrugged. "Worth a shot." I breathed, leaning back, scratching idly at my face. I needed to try to shave.

"Well," I said slowly, unsure of where to start or if I should really tell her every reason. "I want to know the full story of how the world ended. You seem to know what happened, and I doubt I'll ever be lucky enough to find someone else who knows. It's not like I can go around surveying people about weather or not Greek myths are real- people'd think I'm a rioter or something."

She made a face. "A rioter…?"

I blinked. I guess not everyone used those terms. I rubbed the nap of my neck, a little self-conscious. "Yeah, you know, rioter. The people who went crazy from being part of the riots and never stopped being crazy, not all that many left, since the riots turned on themselves, but most people kill them on sight."

Her expression, from what I could see of it, was unreadable. "Right…"

"People only kill them because they think that the craziness is contagious or to put them out of their misery." I said quietly as a slight and unpleasant wave of nostalgia struck me. There were a lot of rioters running around just a few months ago, some of which I even recognized. I shook my head "Uh, anyways, that's not important.

"Aside from all the Greek myths stuff, our chances of survival are better if we have someone else to watch our back, you know? I got sick once. It sucks, trust me. With someone else there, you can focus on getting better and only getting better while they can take care of the more difficult stuff. And, uh, there's some things you might not be able to do with only one person, but with another person it's possible…" I scratched my head. I was starting to feel like a 3rd grader talking about his show-and-tell project, nervous energy in my gut included.

"You seem like the type of person who would join a survival group as soon as you had the opportunity to." She commented dryly, though it sounded more like a question than a statement.

"Well, I didn't," I sighed, a slight edge pin-pricking into my tone.

"Why?"

I got the impression that she did notice the fact I didn't want to talk about it, but decided that she would ask anyways. "Maybe I'll tell you if you let me stay."

She squinted, shooting an unkind smile my way. "Don't flatter yourself. You're not that interesting."

I raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't that mean you think I'm interesting?"

"In the sense that you would find any lunatic, yes. That doesn't mean I want to be around a lunatic, or a rioter, for that matter."

Well there goes my hopes, shot dead and buried in two sentences. I scowled at her. "I'm no rioter."

"Oh, sorry, I thought rioters were crazy people who did crazy things, like, say, suggest two people form a partnership based on one life-or death situation and a discarded butterknife. You seemed to fit the definition."

I made a growling noise in the back of my throat. It wasn't very friendly, but then again, neither was she. "Do you have a smartass reply for everything?"

"Do you know how to tie everything to your stupid suggestion?" She shot back.

"The suggestion that could one day save both of our lives? Yes."

"No, the stupid, unnecessary, selfish one that I already shot down because it's a ridiculous idea."

I reared back, anger rising in me again like I was a hot air balloon. "Selfish?" I stammered, gaping.

She cross her arms and glared a hole into my head. "Yes, _selfish_. Every single reason you listed was just something you would benefit from. _You_ want to know why western civilization is dying. _You_ want someone to be around to take care of your sorry ass in case you get sick. _You _want someone around who can make sure you don't get stabbed in the back in a fight."

"I'm thinking about Survival!" I shouted, leaning in closer to her in a totally not friendly Percy-you-idiot-what-are-you-doing-you-need-her-to-like-you sort of way, our noses inches from each other, and both of our faces screwed painfully in anger.

"No, you're thinking about your own ass, and your own wants, and nothing else." She hissed back at me, her finger poking me in my chest. "You know, now that I think of it, it's probably a good thing you didn't join a survival party, because you'd probably have gotten them and yourself killed because you were only thinking about yourself and did something stupid. I think that's more than enough reason to _never _want to partner up with someone like you. I hope no one has to suffer through that misfortune."

I was breathing heavily and my face burned with about ten different feelings. Anger, shame, regret, and that little annoying nudge that reminded me Annabeth was pretty, to name a few. I gulped down the sensation and grit my teeth to keep it down. "'There a problem with thinking about your own ass?" I asked slowly, my voice tight.

She scoffed, making no effort to hide her disgust. "Please. As if you ever think about anything else _other_ than your own ass."

My stomach felt like a nuclear bomb had just been detonated in my lower intestines, swirling with with noxious fury. I didn't say anything, not trusting my verbal filter to hold against the tons of raw sewage that threatened to burst from my mouth if I started talking. She didn't give a flying mythological fuck about me, or what I wanted, or what I've been through, but she was more than willing to judge me from what little she did know. It reminded me of the teachers at most schools I went to.

No tolerance, no second chances.

Stiffly, I rose up from the bed-my _mom's_ bed- and slowly put on my jacket, and slung my backpack over my shoulder not sparing another look at Chase. I bent over, grabbed the pocket knife I had thrown to the floor, and slipped it back in my pocket, before heading for the door.

"You're welcome," I muttered with a shaky breath, and swallowed. "for the bandages." I hunched over and trudged out of the room- and all the way out of the cabin.

* * *

><p>The second I closed the door behind me, I punched the cabin wall so hard, three shingles fell off.<p>

It felt like I was breathing pea soup as I grit my teeth together so hard my ears started to ring, however that works, I had to wonder just a little bit. I leaned up against the cabin and pressing my forehead against the wood, because otherwise I'd be banging my head against it, and I didn't need another reason to have a migraine.

I seriously fucked that up.

But, can you blame me? Chase was absolutely intolerable. People write books and study about people like her. I think it's called something like, oh, _demonology,_ or something.

So, sure, I wasn't thinking about her or what she wanted. Big whoop, I barely know her. How am I supposed to know what she'd want, anyways? But did that stop her? Like hell, if anything, it seems like she took personal offense to me not knowing how to tickle her pink or something.

And on top of that, she was _wrong_. I didn't give her my bandages so she'd owe me or something, if that's what you're thinking, I just did it because she was hurt. No, it doesn't make sense, but I didn't really think about it much either. I'm impulsive. I just _do _things.

"Fuck…" I breathed, kicking the cabin for good measure. I should probably stop assaulting my cabin.

Eventually, I pushed myself away from the cabin. The sun had just set, by the looks of it, and I could already feel the temperature dropping as night started to creep in on the horizon. I was going to need shelter, and fast.

Well, my cabin is pretty much the last place I'm going to be sleeping tonight. This day sucked a lot more than usual.

My eyes drifted to the sister cabin of my own, and I sighed.

I'd been in there once, when I was younger. A newlywed couple had invited me and my mother over for a dinner while they were on a vacation. They both had wanted a kid, and they spent a lot of time fawning over me and talking to my mom about raising me. The memory was a little hazy, me being only five at the time, but I think the cabin had the same layout as mine, which, hopefully, meant beds.

Granted, I would need to get in first, but that was a small detail when I considered the possibility of a bed. Even if I would probably be plagued with pangs of nostalgia throughout the night reminding me that I wasn't in _my _cabin, the idea of a bed was too good to resist.

I took a quick look around for any straggling snake woman or anything more Greek than a salad, before walking up to the sister cabin.

From a glance,it was a bit more run down than mine. More shingles littered the ground around the cabin, and one of the windows had a bunch of cracks running through it. It would probably be easy to break, if I had to. I peered into the cabin though the broken window, and I groaned as I felt something in my chest shrivel up and drop to my feet.

The inside of the cabin was a disaster. Half of the furniture that should have been there, well, wasn't. I could see random junk strewn about the room, which told me the place had been looted quite thoroughly. Most of the stuff that was still there was electronics and books and picture frames. A bunch of junk that lost it's purpose months ago.

I reached out to the door, and turned the handle, and it creaked open slowly, like it had just been woken up from a deep sleep. This time, there was no one in the cabin, as I stood at it's entrance just me, and the remains of a dusty cabin that had been gutted of anything worthwhile.

It was more than just a little sad, it was downright depressing; It reminded me of one of the abandoned buildings in Manhattan, but far more… _still. _At least the abandoned homes there still had the remnants of life lining them-it was the city after all-rats were everywhere, as well as other little pests, and you could hear the sound of other people in the distance most of the time, even up until I left. But the cabin was lacking in anything that remotely reminded me that just four months ago, some family was probably living here and enjoying the last days of summer vacation together. It was a husk of what used to be a getaway from life, where people could spend their best days, plan children together, eat great food, and sleep til' noon. Now it was necessary shelter from the cold, and nothing more.

After lingering around the door frame for at least a minute, a sharp gust of ocean air urged me inside. I closed the door behind me and scanned the living room. An armchair was upturned and had started collecting cobwebs. I took a step inward, a soft crunch startling me and sending me jumping back into the door. I looked down and saw broken glass lying on the floor, and it only took me a second later to find the toppled over and broken lamp.

"Christ…" I muttered running my head through my hair and pushing it back. The snake women had set me more on edge than usual, and the fact that there were more monsters probably lurking around, well, that wasn't a comfort, either. Crunching the light bulb even further I walked deeper inside to the kitchen.

The tablecloth was gone from the table, definitely now someone's makeshift blanket. The chairs were strewn about the room, and it looks like one was missing. What someone could do with a chair, I'd never know.

I ghosted my hand over the table, leaving steaks in the dust with my fingertips, as I took in the kitchen. Several cupboards were open, and I had no doubts that they were all empty. Even if I was more stubborn than most looters, I knew a lost cause when I saw one. Instead, I moved to the stove, and started fiddling knobs. It was an old-fashioned gas stove, and If I was lucky, there might still be a little bit of fuel left in there. The stove was silent no matter how I fiddled with the knobs, and I took a few experimental sniffs, and was not met with the noxious smell of gasoline. Whoever had been here last had tapped the stove out.

Shaking my head from the delusions of sleeping somewhere above 50 degrees for a night, I walked away from the kitchen and towards the hall the connected the bedrooms. I briefly considered going to the larger bedroom that mirrored my mother's… The very same one Chase had taken to.

I scowled, and walked into the room that mirrored my old one.

Praise Jesus, and the Greek myths too, I guess, there's a bed. One with a bare, obviously bloodstained mattress, but _a bed._ I could be concerned about the bloodstains tomorrow. The rest of the room was still torn apart, dressers ransacked and, oddly, a few seashells on the ground, mostly broken.

The bed was old-looking, and the mattress was more than a little lumpy, but it was way better than the floor or a flattened out cardboard box that I was more accustomed to nowadays. I slung my backpack off my shoulders and tossed it on the bed.

Ducking out of the room, I figured that I had better at least do a quick once-over of the Cabin. Some things might be useful to me, but worthless for someone who was traveling.

The bathroom that was further down the hall offered nothing of value. The shower curtain was gone, and the medicine cabinet behind the mirror contained a single cue tip, which was used.

When I closed the medicine cabinet, I grimaced. I looked terrible. My hair was lifeless, choppy, greasy, and far more tangled than usual. The scruffy monstrosity growing on my face was painful to look at, an odd combination of too long and not mature enough to be thick. I could hardly even call it a proper beard.

I'd never been a big fan of how I looked to begin with, but now I just looked awful. It's not that I was ugly, I just wasn't attractive. I think the fact that I had, unfortunately, inherited my dad's dull, brown eyes. I don't think they fit my face. I would have much preferred to have inherited my mom's bright, blue eyes. The fact that she would say I had his eyes never sat right with me in general.

I shook my head, and backed out of the bathroom, all the way down the hall to the room that mirrored my mom's.

First thing I noticed was the rug. I could totally use that for a blanket tonight, which was awesome. Second thing I noticed was the mouse, which was less awesome, but he darted across the the room in barely a blink. I just had to hope that this place wasn't infested, and keep my backpack closed at all times it wasn't in my hands.

The room felt lonely. The Queen size bed, even stripped of everything sans the mattress, should have looked more inviting than the single-sized one in the other room, but for some strange reason, it didn't. It felt like I was looking at a slab of concrete rather than a bed. Cold and uninviting.

This room seemed dustier than the others, which made me think that the previous residents hadn't made much use of it, either. It was actually starting to give me the creeps. It was a far cry from my mom's room, despite the identical layout.

Knelt down, and started rolling up the rug, eager to leave the room, and slung it over my shoulder. The musty smell of the rug nearly made me gag, and I was quick to take it off my shoulder, back into my hands. This thing needed some air.

Taking in a deep gulp of relatively clean air, I threw it back over my shoulder and hurried to the front door, and yanked it open. I let loose the carpet, and started airing it out, shaking it forcefully to get the most of the musty sink out of the fibers as I could. I glanced out onto the waterfront. It was completely dark now, sans for the dim illumination the almost-full moon provided, along with the thousands of stars that now lit up the night sky. I had never seen so many stars in the sky as I had since the world ended. It reminded my of Manhattan, in a way, like all the lights of the city had moved to the sky when the city fell into ruin.

_So the world ended, my mom and Paul died, I'm homeless, Winter is coming way too fast, Greek myths are actually real and want to kill me, and I'm basically at the mercy of the blonde menace named Chase. But, hey, the stars are pretty. _I thought bitterly, rolling my eyes.

After a good solid minute of flapping the rug into the open air, I was brave enough to take a whiff. I made a face. It was no bed of roses, but it wasn't completely unbearable, either. I rolled the rug back up, and headed back inside, closing the door behind me, and walked back to the bedroom I was using.

I unrolled the rug on my bed, picking up my backpack as I did so until it was fully uncurled. It was huge, so it kinda hung awkwardly off the sides, far too stiff to hang like a real blanket, but it was still the best thing I'd seen in weeks.

I zipped open my backpack as I flopped down onto the bed, and fished out a granola bar that only felt slightly obliterated from the collision with Definitely-not-Mrs-Burtshulk's face, and made a face. Oats and honey. Again. I seriously should have conserved the fruit-filled ones a little better. One can only eat oats and honey so many times before it starts to taste like sawdust.

Funneling the crushed pieces of granola into my mouth as I opened the wrapper, I laid back in the bed with a sigh, and only one thing on my mind: Chase.

My brows furrowed immediately and a stone landed in my stomach that boiled my insides. It took serious willpower to not crush the rest of the granola bar in my hand.

On one hand, I can get where she's coming from, but on the other, I couldn't help but feel insulted. My suggestion wasn't that bad, honestly, and, yeah, maybe I was thinking of myself, but it's not like anything I listed couldn't potentially be helpful to her, aside from learning about the Greek stuff. One day she'll get sick and then she'll have to be the one stuck quivering in an alleyway, praying to her Greek gods that no one finds her. That'll show her.

Sadly the thought wasn't very satisfying.

Letting my mind wander, I couldn't help but wonder what it was she was doing up here anyways. She seemed pretty no-nonsense to me; the type of person who would have headed south _months_ ago in wake of the oncoming cold. Maybe it was some crazy Greek myth thing.

Maybe _she_ was a crazy Greek myth.

I shook my head, scoffing. Now that would really be something. Being kicked out of my own cabin by a myth come to life. No, Chase had the crazy part down pat, but I don't remember any Greek myths about shrill, aggressive blond girls who steal your cabin and stab you regularly.

Scarfing down the granola bar, I rooted through my backpack again until I fished out a water bottle, and quickly drank the whole thing. I wasn't worried about conserving it. I had another, and I could refill it tomorrow at one of the lakes in the national parks.

I tossed the empty bottle haphazardly into my backpack, and pulled myself under my makeshift blanket, not bothering to take off my jacket or shoes. The rug was itchy, even with all my clothes on, incredibly stiff, and still a little musty, but it was also warm enough to keep on me.

I realized, of course, that come tomorrow, I would have to go back to my cabin and try to talk to Chase again. The thought was dreadful enough to make me wish for sleep to come quick just so that I wouldn't have to listen to every single ADHD cell in my brain prattle on about the infinite amount of ways it could go while breaking off into non-sequitur tangents, not when I barely wanted to go back in the first place.

But, at the same time, I had to. I couldn't just leave without knowing the truth, and not while Chase was still squatting in my cabin. Some things are worth toughing it out for, especially when it's for my mom.

Tomorrow, I would try again. Chase was about to learn firsthand exactly how determined I could be.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN:... Hey.<strong>_

_**SORRY!**_

_**Yeah, so, I know I said I would be updating once every two weeks, or at least trying to, and this is... about five weeks later. In actuality this chapter took about three weeks to write, but my laptop broke on me the day after I posted the last chapter, leaving me high and dry for about two weeks. I'm not THAT bad, gosh. Set your expectations to ~2weeks and keep 'em that way unless I say otherwise. Stay frosty. Unless you're with me in New England, in which case, warm the fuck up, the snow must be destroyed**_.

_**PS: I will now be updating my progress on the next chapter on my account profile, so if you're curious on how it's going at any time, just check my profile to get a general idea of where I'm at.**_


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